Microsoft can't tap into the fast-growing tablet market, according to new figures that reveal lacklustre sales of Surface RT and other Windows 8 slabs.
Canalys figures for Q4 show a 12 per cent growth in the worldwide PC market, fuelled by a 75 per cent rise in tab shipments to 46.2 million units. Notebooks sales were flat (58 …

COMMENTS

Page:

Re: If you can't own the market..

This .... this ... this is a fairly reasonable post from Eadon.[1] What strange new world can this presage?

I don't agree with much of it, mind you; Windows is an entrenched technology, and like all such, it will be around for a long, long time (in IT terms). How many shops are still running, say, IMS? A whole damn lot of them. Hell, a few times a year I see queries about potential customers who are running even more obscure mainframe DBMSs and other software. There's a reason why CA can keep milking the maintenance revenues for products like IDMS.[2]

As Tim Worstall pointed out re Dell the other day, there's no reason why a company should last forever. Someday the remains of Microsoft will likely be acquired by something like CA, to scrape up those final years of maintenance revenues. But it won't "sink like a stone", because the vast majority of existing Microsoft business customers have no reason to take the huge costs of replacing all their existing Windows-based software, or of retraining their staff.

Once an OS is established, it only disappears through a long, slow process of attrition.

[1] We'll forgive the misspelling of "wither" - this time.

[2] To be fair, CA has added a number of features to IDMS over the last twenty years. But that's been commercially justifiable because it keeps the existing installed base happy, and they keep paying high-margin maintenance fees.

I wonder why Microsoft can't sell an awful, poorly designed, poorly thought out OS like Windows 8. You think people would be HAPPY to have to sit and figure out the crude 1980s style "tile" interface. Study how to use a "new" OS that they have already learned... and have been working with every day for 10 years. Who would have thought that people wouldn't like all that "new" fun at work.

Re: Tiles interface done badly = win 8

Disagree. I'm a software dev for iOS and WP and have owned all three major phone OSes. Lumia 920 is now my primary phone.

Win Phone 8's UI is thoughtful, consistent, and constantly suprises and delights people who pick up my Lumia 920. Sure it has limitations that frustrate ... but usability and presentation are great for a handheld, limited attention span device.

The Win 8 desktop team could learn a lot from the Win Phone 8 team, however ....

"Customers played a wait-and-see game"

Re: "Customers played a wait-and-see game"

'xactly what I thought when I read that.

Customers (well potential customers) either didn't know or didn't care. The phrasing in the article implies a hoard of people just waiting to see if MS did good or released cheap enough. I can't imagine this was the case at all.

Re: "Customers played a wait-and-see game"

I read it that the general public (the customers) have learnt from HP's WebOS and so are waiting for MS to do an HP and slash prices to $100 - at which point MS won't be able to cope with demand because it will have axed the development team etc etc...

Re: Not only can't MS sell tablets... @David Hicks

Yep that's what most people want. If you listen to MS fanclub they think the whole world want Office. Well here's news for them, office is a bloated something you are forced to use at work that I have absolutely no fucking use for 99.9999% of my life.

Re: Not only can't MS sell tablets...

More than that, the problem with chrome and many current "ecosystem" moves is they want your soul.

It’s like being back under the parent’s roof, except now your parents are on commission.

Everything you do and read is monitored, at lunch your get little snacks based on today’s browsing you searched for "tasty birds" here have some turkey twizlers.

I needed to use Skype in rush on Win8 it told me I couldn’t without signing into my MS identity, for now it's possible to get round it but when there is no "desktop" or sentient adult version I'll hand in the OS.

I don't want to tracked from inception to incineration by some corporation. Too much of this “re visioning” shite is subjugating the power of the “Personal” computer under the jackboot of conformity and assimilation marketing.

Re: Give then to America

>It's been proven time and time again, Microsoft can sell any old tat over there, and trailerpark hicks will queue up at Walmart to get their hands on it.

That is also why Microsoft bribed Nokia because they thought any crooked teeth cider drinking limey would pretend to be all posh on high street buying their fancy Nokia without paying attention to what they are buying. Would have worked too had they gotten the phones out a year earlier.

Re: Telling the customer what they really want...

Re: Telling the customer what they really want...

The same Henry Ford who raised worker wages and instituted car loans so his workers could buy his vehicles. Later, when workers tried to organize, he had machine gun emplacements at his plants and home and several workers were shot and killed by local police and Ford security when a march occurred.

Halve the price?!

More Denial

""Windows 8 launched late in the year and was a massive departure from the existing operating systems, so consumers played a wait-and-see game," said Tim Coulling, senior analyst at Canalys"

Why is there so much refusal to admit the obvious on the part of so many "analysts" and tech columns? Windows8 is hated, it's that simple. A couple months back we were seeing articles lamenting MS's lackluster PC sales and efforts by medial shills to pass off the weakness as due to Tablets and mobile eating away at consumer preferences and spending choices. Now we are seeing mobile devices with WIN8 doing poorly as well, and whaddaya know, more apologetics that ignore the obvious.

I have read numerous comment sections on almost any coverage of WIN8, and one thing is almost always glaringly clear, the majority of opinion is negative. In many cases, severely so. The most commonly cited issues being the horrible new UI and "mystery" navigation along with a complete lack of concern for user preferences. I bought a Win8 laptop, HUGE mistake, and although I am also looking for a new PC, will not do so until I can find one with WIn7.

It is very simpe. WIndows 8 is a failure. Thus, time for MS to learn from the mistake and move on.

Re: More Denial

Still it can only go downhill from here.

Now they have locked 45m or so users into Xbox Live, they can pull the used game rug from under them for next-gen.. I saw they were getting idiotic gamers to sign up for slightly discounted 12 month subscriptions recently...... (we all know why, 12 months of non-defection to PS3).

Re: Still it can only go downhill from here.

Wow and you think Sony (by far the biggest inventors and pushers of DRM) is any more supportive of the 2nd hand game market? They both suck and Nintendo sucks too they are just incompetent at it and put out games for 8 year olds.

The only reason the netbook is dead

is that MSFT killed it. The whole point of the netbook was a small and CHEAP Internet, media, and basic office device, and when first released the OEMs could get WinPX Home for $15 a pop. Then MSFT went to $35 for 7 Starter, $50 for Win 7 Home, and they just cut all the chances for the OEMs to make a cent right out. When I bought my Win 7 AMD netbook it was $350 with Win 7 HP X64 and 4GB of RAM, by the time the last Win 8 netbooks rolled off the shelves the price had already reached $500 USD.

I think in the coming months you'll see more and more OEMs go to Google's Android and ChromeOS as MSFT has decided they are a "premium" brand and expect the OEMs to only sell premium units. Ask the OEMs with warehouses full of ulrabooks how well that worked in a dead economy MSFT, of course your price for SurfaceRT just shows you still don't get it.

The R(e)T(arded) Edition was DoA but even Pro is being butchered...

...for its launch price: $1000-1200?

=O

The classic case of "Are you f'n kidding me?"

While R(e)T(arded) Edition was stilborn due to its R(e)T(arded) feature limitations, its laguhably high price tag only compounded the death certificate, this perpetually about-to-be-launched Surface Pro supposed to cure all the problems...

...except it comes at a price that made everyone thinking "just WTF ARE Ballmer et all SMOKING THERE?"